


A Composition of Crickets

by zigostia



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M, Minor Injuries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-26
Updated: 2018-05-26
Packaged: 2019-05-13 18:25:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14753987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zigostia/pseuds/zigostia
Summary: “Fine,” John said, voice strained. “Fine, Sherlock.”“Not—”Fine,Sherlock thought, and felt like laughing.





	A Composition of Crickets

The air was crisp against his skin, a brisk flurry of the slightest chill, offset by his scarf and the turned-up collar of his coat. His surroundings were dimmed, blurred-out, pushed into a corner in the back of his mind. He still noticed, of course; noticed the cabbie getting out to shake a fist at him as he pounded down the street, the woman dropping an arm that was holding a phone down to her side, the newly opened kebab shop as he rounded a corner—but those thoughts were taken down subconsciously and with no more consideration than an intuitive observation.

His attention was occupied elsewhere.

The man (mid-forties, grey-dyed-auburn hair, ninety-percent-confirmed suspect to a triple homicide) turned a corner, where paved path merged into grassy grounds. Forest trail, fourteen kilometres, leading to the lake. Twisted turns and dead ends, well-tread dirt melting into long cattails in a pond.

The suspect fled across the forest, and Sherlock gave chase.

A button in his mind blinked, lighting up with a flash of red. There, to the right. Shortcut slicing through the path previously taken. Skid, swivel, turn. (Meet in the middle with handcuffs and a gun.) Excellent―elementary.

The distance between them shortened, metres from ten to five to two.

Rapid footsteps from behind, from his side, in front of him. John, hair damp and dark at the tips with sweat. One step ahead.

They went down in a tangle of limbs. Grunts and curses, the clinking of metal handcuffs.

Something else, glinting in the air. A flash of silver, a second of pause. A sickening sound punctuated by a gasp.

Sherlock’s attention exploded, zigzagging across the scene in fractals, then turned pinhole thin, a tiny concentrated burst.

He grabbed the man’s arm and twisted hard, digging his thumb into the socket of his shoulder. Something clattered to the grass with a muffled thump.

The man scrambled to his feet. Rapid footsteps indicated his leave.

Sherlock only noticed this dimly, a stray observation in his peripheral mind.

His attention was occupied elsewhere.

John was breathing hard, air hissing through gritted teeth on each exhale. A hand pressed to his left knee. Blood trickled through his fingers, tinted pale, off-hue in the midnight moonlight.

Sherlock stared at it. Roaring in his ears was a waterfall rush of thoughts, emotions, observations, _things_ he couldn’t quite decipher.

“John,” he muttered, mumbled, shouted, couldn’t tell.

“Fine,” John said, voice strained. “Fine, Sherlock.”

“Not—” _Fine,_ Sherlock thought, and felt like laughing.

It came out hysterical, a garbled giggle. His fingers rose to his neck, tugging, pulling, yanking at his scarf. It refused to be undone by sheer force, the knot twisting upon itself, and he snarled and tore, hard enough to rip.

Warm fingers came to a rest upon his, effectively stilling them. Calloused and rough, but dextrous: doctor’s hands. They took Sherlock’s fingers, loosened them from their vise-like grip, then tugged them away. Unknotting with swift, easy motions.

John took the scarf and wrapped it around his knee. Tying it at the bottom, he pressed a hand to the wound for a second, earning a slight grimace.

Sherlock’s mind was caught up in a storm, images scorching at the corners: a bloodstained blade, stark red contrasting the dark green grass; navy wool scarf around a knee, where life flowed out onto the forest floor. So vivid, the colour brilliantly bright, like fire, like flames; it spurred a wild flurry in Sherlock’s pulse and sent his heart hammering with reckless abandon. His mind felt jagged and lined with spikes, thoughts hurtling about his head, rendering him unable to process anything but a sole idea that blared like technicolour lights above his head: John. John Watson. John Watson was bleeding, John Watson was _hurt,_ possibly _badly,_ possibly—blood meant pain, and wounds, and—

He would not lose John Watson. He would _not._ He would _never,_ just the mere _thought_ of it—

A pair of hands grabbed him by the shoulders and gripped him tight. There was a voice, saying something, Sherlock thought there was, but he could not make it out through the mantra in his mind: _lose him I will not I will not_ and he closed his eyes, shutting out the world, but they refused to fall silent, the images burning brighter in the dark.

“Sherlock,” through the murkiness came a voice, laced with enough urgency that it cut through the muddled chaos and registered in his mind.

“Look at me,” and Sherlock obeyed, pale wild eyes meeting dark steely blue. They yanked the last vestiges of air from his lungs and he gasped, chest heaving.

John peered at him closely, searching, eyebrows drawn together in concern. “Sherlock, what’s wrong? Are you alright?”

Sherlock looked back in disbelief. John, that was what was wrong. John was _—_

Stabbed. In the knee. With a Swiss Army knife. Wound less than four centimetres wide, two centimetres deep. No major artery disrupted.

John was _fine._

Sherlock stared at John, greedily taking in the dip in his eyebrows, the scrunch of his nose, the creases in the corners of his eyes.

“John,” Sherlock murmured.

The corner of John’s mouth tilted up. “Yeah, Sherlock?”

He didn’t know how it happened. It hit him like a wave, rushing up above his knees, waist, chest, neck, in over his head.

John was _fine,_ and Sherlock had—what had he done?—Sherlock had—so strange, the way he had—irrational, illogical, impossible. Embarrassment blended with relief mixed with frustration simmered in a bitter cocktail. He sucked in the biting air of the forest, struggling to even out his breaths. His eyelids fluttered, an infuriating sting prickling at the corners.

“Fine,” Sherlock repeated. “You’re fine.”

“Mm-hmm.” John glanced at Sherlock’s scarf, wrapped neatly around his leg. “Might have some trouble walking for a few days, but it’s all good.”

Sherlock needed to focus on his breathing in order to stop it from speeding up. In, out. Slow and steady. Eyes fixed on John, the rise and fall of his shoulders. Barring his gaze from drifting to John’s knee (uncalled for, unpredicted, so very strange).

“John,” Sherlock said again, with no other purpose than the sole reason of feeling his lips form the name.

John offered a small, wry grin. “Hello.”

Sherlock opened his mouth and found a thousand words at his tongue.

“John,” he said, barely above a breath. “I should have you know. That is, I—” His gaze darted away and he wrenched them back to meet John’s eyes (like looking at the sun), to hold his gaze steady (a supernova). “It would cause me a great deal of—of emotion. If anything happened. To you, I mean. If... yes. It would be—beyond a bit not good.”

John was quiet for a moment. He cleared his throat.

“Mm,” he said. “Yeah. Me, too. I mean... if you.” He nodded briskly.

Sherlock blinked. His stomach flipped in a way that was not entirely unpleasant.

“Yeah,” John reiterated. “Me, as well. If you—beyond a bit not good.” Another nod.

Sherlock smiled just the slightest. The two of them really weren’t the best conversationalists, were they.

There was a silence. Then, cautiously, presuming their safety, the crickets began to chirp. A gentle breeze ruffled Sherlock’s curls, breaking goosebumps across his neck.

“He got away,” John said, voice hushed. He coughed. “The murderer, I mean.”

Sherlock blinked, rewinding his memory. Oh, right.

“He wasn’t the murderer,” he said casually. “Just a suspect. I let him go on purpose.”

John snickered. “Yeah, right.” He tilted his head, a strand of hair falling into his eyes. Sherlock’s fingers twitched; he smothered the urge to brush it back. “You could’ve went after him, you know.”

“I know,” Sherlock said.

“I would’ve been fine,” John said.

“I know.” And this time, Sherlock let his fingers rise, tucking John’s hair back behind his ears.

John’s smile softened at the edges, face smoothing into an expression that made something inside Sherlock’s chest glow.

His fingers lingered on John’s neck, where a rapid pulse fluttered. John’s eyes shone in the darkness of the night, a beacon of light. The embers spilled from Sherlock’s chest and tumbled outwards, spreading throughout his body, seeping into his skin.

“John.” The words came out in a whisper. “One more thing. I. That is, you―” He bit his tongue, licked his lips, swallowed. “You should know that I—that I—” His throat clogged with wet sand; he looked at John with frustration in his face. Words, usually slipping like quicksilver from his tongue, razor-edges, sharp and biting, now stumbled in his mouth, tangling in his throat.

How, he wondered, were you supposed to go about confessing _something_ to _someone_ when you didn't know what that _something_ was?

Before Sherlock could attempt at another confrontation, John raised a hand and brushed a thumb across his cheekbone.

Sherlock felt a noise crawl up his throat, high and desperate, and he smothered it into a quick, quiet inhalation.

“I,” he tried again. John’s hand moved lower, his fingers ghosting over Sherlock’s lips, and his stream of thought abruptly derailed.

“It’s OK,” John shushed him, gently. His eyes shone a brilliant blue. “Me, too. As well.”

Sherlock’s breaths came shallow, his mouth slightly open. John’s index finger resting on the bottom lip (searing). “You do?”

John smiled. “Of course I do.”

(Breathing; breathing’s boring.) 

From the distance, voices. Barely discernible, but steadily increasing in volume. (Lestrade.)

Damn him, thought Sherlock, finding it difficult to summon up the usual scorn.

John turned. His hand left Sherlock, leaving a tingle and a slight sensation of loss; surfaced yearning. (Remarkable.) Sherlock drew his own hand away, standing up with precariously wobbly legs.

John followed, only for his forgotten left knee to buckle, accompanied by a sharp gasp of pain.

Instinctively, Sherlock’s arms shot out and wrapped around John’s torso. The panic that had almost fully extinguished rekindled as he pulled John close to his chest.

John looked up at Sherlock through softly swooping lashes. His heat seeped through the layers of fabric; woollen jumper and cotton shirt, skin, blood, and bone. Heart pounding. Pupils wide.

Sherlock fixed his gaze with John’s and held him close.

A part of him rebelled, protested. Venturing past his boundaries, treading over the line: this shift in perspective was previously unknown, the concept foreign. Sherlock had always prided himself to above this, to be untouchable, a glass display. Could it be that John Watson knocked him so far off-road?

The answer was apparent.

Frightening—no, curious. Exciting? Confusing. Staggering. Extraordinary.

John’s eyes held a million words, a thousand stories, and if Sherlock didn’t know them all, he would in the future. Everything—he wanted to know everything. He had thought he already did (favourite tea, brand of honey, type of toast; the exact shade and colour of his eyes, his skin, his hair; the twenty-seven different ways he smiled). But there was more, always more. Sherlock vowed that he would learn them all. Build a room in his mind palace to store them away. 

Out from the path: crunched leaves beneath boots, a gruff mutter under the breath. Sherlock moved, his arms rising from John’s torso to his shoulders, turning them towards the voices. A tentative step forwards.

John hissed, stumbling slightly, gingerly dropping his weight upon his injured leg. Sherlock dampened the burst of alarm that rose in his chest and shifted, allowing John to lean harder against him.

The voices were joined by a beam of light, violently white and artificial, stark against the inky night air. Lowering to the scarf, now blended with deep mahogany. An exclamation, concern blended with accusation.

John turned his face to Sherlock’s shoulder, exhaling into his collar. Dipping down. Warm lips against his skin; the junction of clavicle and neck.

Sherlock tightened his hold. He turned his head, breathed in sweat and shampoo beneath the layer of forest dirt. He pressed his lips to John’s temple and smiled into his hair.

**Author's Note:**

> Special thanks to [ensorcel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ensorcel) for listening to me freak out over a title for fifteen minutes.
> 
> allsovacant has made a gorgeous cover art for this fic <3

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Cover] A Composition of Crickets](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14785920) by [allsovacant](https://archiveofourown.org/users/allsovacant/pseuds/allsovacant)




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